'Exactly so, Dalia,' said Zeth, obviously pleased. 'Now, enough theological debate, we have work to complete.'

The prototype of the enhancer was brought down from the workspace above and intensively tested within the confines of Zeth's inner forge. With Dalia's intuitive grasp of the machine's structure and Zeth's centuries of accumulated wisdom, the device began to take on a new and more elaborate structure as the results of those tests revealed hitherto unforeseen complications.

Severine spent her days virtually chained to her graphics station, turning Dalia and Zeth's new ideas into workable patterns for Zouche to machine and Caxton to assemble. Mellicin organised their labours with her customary zeal and even her normally stern features were alight with the joy of creation.

Dalia had never given any thought to the notion of creation in the biological sense until one day working with Severine and Zouche on the raised dais, checking measurements on the schematics against those that had been constructed by Zeth's fabricators.

'The housings for the dopamine dispensers are slightly off,' said Dalia, leaning over the skull assembly.

'Damn, I knew it,' cursed Zouche, the squat machinist already at eye-level with the assembly. 'Never trust a fabrication servitor, that's my motto.'

'I thought you said ''Only use a carbon dioxide gas laser for cutting'' was your motto?' said Severine with a wink at Dalia.

'I have several mottos. A person can have more than one motto can't they?'

'I suppose,' said Dalia. 'If they were a fickle person.'

'Fickle?' snapped Zouche. 'A less fickle person than I would be hard to find.'

'What about Mellicin?' suggested Dalia.

'Apart from her,' replied Zouche.

'He's handsome,' said Severine. 'Don't you think he's handsome?'

Dalia and Zouche shared a look of puzzlement. 'Who?' asked Dalia.

Severine nodded towards the empath strapped into the throne of the enhancer. 'Him, don't you think he's handsome. I wonder what his name is?'

'He's a psyker, he doesn't warrant a name,' said Zouche, his lip curling in distaste.

Dalia came around from the back of the enhancer and took a good look at the unconscious empath. In the days since they had first laid eyes on him, he had not stirred so much as a muscle, and Dalia had begun to think of him as just another component of the machine.

'I hadn't really thought about it,' she said, troubled at the thought that she had treated a human being in such a clinical way. 'I suppose so.'

Severine smiled. 'No, there's only one man occupying your thoughts, eh?'

'What are you talking about?' asked Dalia, though her eyes slid over to one of the metal workbenches at the chamber's edge where the robed figure of Caxton was rebuilding one of the emitter arrays.

'Ha! You know exactly what I'm talking about,' said Severine triumphantly.

'No, I don't,' said Dalia, but couldn't help smiling as she said it.

'He likes you too, I saw you holding hands when we first came here.'

'I don't like heights,' said Dalia, 'Caxton was just…'

'Just?' prompted Severine when Dalia didn't continue.

'The lad likes you,' put in Zouche. 'You're attractive enough and though I'm no expert, he seems like a handsome lad, though he could use a bit of fattening up. You'd make comely children and they would probably be clever too. Yes, you should pair yourself with the lad… What?'

Dalia and Severine looked at Zouche's pugnacious features and they both laughed. 'No messing about with you, Zouche? Was that how they courted women in the Yndonesic Bloc?' asked Severine.

Zouche puffed out his chest. 'The atoll-exclave of my clan didn't have time for courting.'

'Then how do you choose a wife?' said Severine.

'Or a husband?' added Dalia.

'Choose?' scoffed Zouche. 'We don't choose. I come from Nusa Kambangan, where children are genetically mapped at birth. When they come of age, they are paired with a partner with compatible genes that offer the best odds of producing offspring that will benefit the collective.'

Dalia found the notion of such a premeditated selection process unsavoury, and tried to keep her feelings from her voice. 'But what about attraction? Love?'

'What of them?' asked Zouche. 'Are they more important than survival? I don't think so.'

'But don't people fall in love where you're from?'

'Some do,' admitted Zouche, and Dalia saw a shadow of some nameless emotion flicker across his normally stoic features.

'Yeah,' said Severine. 'And what if a person falls for someone they're not matched with?'

'Then they will produce children who are of genetically inferior stock,' snapped Zouche. 'And they will be punished. Severely punished. Enough questions, we have work to do, yes?'

Dalia flinched at the vehemence in Zouche's voice, and exchanged a concerned look with Severine, who simply shrugged and returned to her contemplation of the unconscious empath.

'Well, I think he's handsome,' she said.

At last the final iteration of the machine began to take shape, the various errors corrected and the refinements devised by Dalia and Zeth worked into the design. Under Mellicin's expert direction, the first working model was completed two days ahead of schedule and the golden throne on the dais was replaced with the new model.

Diagnostics were run on every piece of the machine, all without recourse to prayers, holy unguents, chanting or sacred oils. Every portion of the device functioned exactly as its builders had hoped and, in some cases, exceeded their greatest expectations.

Two days after Caxton assembled and installed the last circuit board, Adept Zeth declared that they were ready for a full test and ordered the empath to be woken from his drug-induced slumbers.

A thrumming, bass hum filled the chamber as generators powered by the heat of the magma lagoon diverted vast quantities of energy into the mechanics of the Akashic reader. The air within the great dome had a greasy, electric feel to it, and the emitters placed between the psykers' capsules embedded within the walls of the chamber crackled with silvery sparks.

A pair of muscled servitors lifted the unconscious empath from his gurney and gently sat him upon the padded seat of the newly-installed theta-wave enhancer. Dalia and Mellicin watched as Zeth bent to her ministrations on the man, plugging him into the device with eager, nimble fingers. Barely visible scads of light flickered in the noosphere above the adept's head, and Dalia wondered what manner of information was arriving in Zeth's skull and from where.

She returned her attention to the empath, watching as his eyelids fluttered and his consciousness began rising to the surface of his mind now that he was free of the drugs keeping him quiescent. In the time they had been working on the device, the empath had lost weight, and his once healthy physique now resembled the figures encapsulated in the coffers of the dome's walls.

Working beneath their sightless eyes it was easy to forget the psykers were human beings, albeit dangerous humans with powers beyond those of ordinary mortals. With the first full test of the enhanced Akashic reader upon them, Dalia felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness towards their silent audience.

'Will this hurt them?' asked Dalia, pointing towards the thousands of men and women above.

'The experience will be draining for them I expect,' said Zeth without looking up from her labours. 'Some may not live.'

The coldness with which Zeth spoke chilled Dalia and she felt a knot of anger settle in her belly. Her lips tightened as she looked into the serene face of the empath.

'And what about him?' she asked. 'Is he going to die to make this machine work?'